Three Reasons To Consider Kitchen Renovations
Shiny, beautiful new appliances that reduce energy costs are not the only rewards of a kitchen renovation. Remodelling can help in various other ways. The following are three reasons to upgrade your kitchen.
Create a Social Space
Renovating the kitchen provides the perfect opportunity to re-arrange its layout so that preparing food becomes more sociable and enjoyable. In an open-plan design, you can socialise with family and friends while cooking rather than feeling isolated in a separate room. Whether this is possible, though, depends on your particular architecture. Are there walls that can be removed and replaced with a peninsula island, for instance? To create a convivial cafe atmosphere, you could then line the extra countertop with stools, allowing everyone to chat and relax. The free-flowing space in an open-plan kitchen is the ideal solution for cramped rooms which will feel more spacious once connected with other areas.
Increase Your Kitchen's Efficiency
Renovating can construct a more efficient kitchen also, increasing countertop and storage area. Do you feel cramped when cooking, with ingredients and utensils crowding every centimetre of bench area? Or do unused expanses of stone, wood or laminate waste space? Whether you decide to embrace an open plan or not, you can re-arrange the cupboards and layout to increase or decrease them as needed. Options include a galley, U-shape or one-wall arrangement. A kitchen island adds extra counter and storage area. Alternatively, you could replace excess cupboards with a dining table or bench.
When working out the cabinetry during kitchen renovations, let 'smart storage' be your catchphrase. Within standard cabinets, the dead air above items sitting on the shelves goes to waste. Multiple drawers of varying depths, however, use every square centimetre to advantage. Other clever storage options are similarly efficient.
Make Cooking Easier
As well as working out how to create a social environment, with enough bench and storage, it's crucial to consider how easy it will be to get around and work in the kitchen. For instance, if a sink is at one far end and the fridge at another, you might needlessly walk extra kilometres every day or week just cooking. Commonly used elements such as the sink, refrigerator and cooktop should work conveniently as a group — a relationship which is often called the work triangle. Imagine how alternate layouts would work by tracing the walking pattern you might make when cooking a typical meal. Which components and appliances would you need most often?
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